What is the difference between an arbitrary waveform generator and a vector signal generator?

The architectures of the two are different. The core component of AWG is the DAC, which compiles the waveform with carrier information and plays it directly through the DAC. The latter includes a baseband source and an IQ modulator. The baseband source is used to generate analog IQ signals. Its core component is also a DAC, but at a low rate, so the generated analog IQ signal has a smaller bandwidth; the IQ signal is directly upconverted to RF. Due to different architectures, the application fields of the two sources are also different.

AWG is a broadband device and requires a high DAC clock rate. It can directly generate radio frequency broadband modulation signals or generate analog IQ signals to provide to the IQ modulator. According to the official website information, the AWG5200 can generate a broadband signal with a 4GHz carrier frequency and a 2GHz bandwidth.

SMW200A vector signal generator

In addition, due to its large bandwidth, the transient response time is short, and AWG can also generate high-speed code stream signals (0,1 bit stream). The vector source is a narrowband device, which is mainly limited by the bandwidth of the internal baseband source. It can be used to generate radio frequency modulation signals, and can also output analog IQ signals, but it cannot generate code stream signals. In terms of the number of channels, generally AWG has multiple channels. For example, AWG5200 supports up to 8 analog channels, and each analog channel also has 4 marker signal outputs, which are used to provide trigger signals and control signals to other devices. The vector source currently only supports up to 2 analog channels, but of course it can also provide a marker output interface. From the perspective of output power, the vector source output power has a larger dynamic range, about 120dB. In comparison, AWG is much inferior. Generally, the output power dynamic range is about 30dB. However, the output power dynamic range of AWG5200 can reach 95dB, which is already a leader among AWGs. That’s all I’ll write about the differences between the two. Of course, there are other differences. As for how to choose, it depends on the specific application.

AFG3021C arbitrary waveform/function signal generator